Aberdeen

Aberdeen has been the operational capital of the UK North Sea oil and gas industry for half a century, with operators including BP, Shell and TotalEnergies running platforms and onshore operations from the city, alongside a vast network of specialist contractors covering everything from subsea engineering to platform maintenance. That base isn't disappearing, but it is changing shape, and Aberdeen has positioned itself hard at the centre of that change through the Energy Transition Zone and projects like the Aberdeen Bay offshore wind development, bringing genuinely new demand for electrical, cable jointing and mechanical trades into a city that already had deep technical expertise to draw on.

For tradespeople, this means Aberdeen currently offers something few UK cities can: a genuine choice between traditional oil and gas contract work and an expanding renewables sector, often drawing on very similar underlying skills.

• Cable jointers and electrical technicians, offshore and onshore
• Mechanical fitters and pipefitters
• Composite technicians, increasingly used in blade and platform components
• Welders and fabricators to offshore coded standards
• Licensed engineers and technicians for rotating equipment
• Quality inspectors and NDT technicians

Offshore work comes with its own layer of requirements, survival training, medicals, specific certifications, that a generalist agency can easily get wrong. We work with candidates and clients across both the oil and gas supply chain and the newer offshore wind projects, which means we're placing people into whichever side of Aberdeen's energy market is hiring hardest at a given time, rather than being tied to one.

Do offshore roles in Aberdeen require different certification to onshore energy work? 

Yes. Offshore positions typically require survival and safety training such as BOSIET or equivalent, plus an offshore medical, on top of any trade-specific qualifications. We'll confirm exactly what's needed for a specific role and can point you towards approved training providers if you need to get certified first.